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Friday December 4th 2009

There’s a civil war going on between physical media formats. Blu-ray releases are coming so thick and fast that shops are having to expand their Blu-ray sections by the week, leaving less and less space for standard definition discs.

This, of course, is the natural order of things. But it is causing a few problems.

Firstly, places like HMV are changing their shop layout so regularly to account for the increased Blu-ray stock that you’re not even sure which way to turn when you go in. The flagship Oxford Street store has recently upgraded its selection to cover two full aisles (see above) and is eager to highlight the superiority of the format with big tellys and white (rather than the traditional black) shelving units:

As if this weren’t confusing enough, they’re trying out bizarre new methods of presentation to try and sell the new technology. Check out this undeniably cool and yet unbelievably inefficient ‘coffee table display’:

Unfortunately, all the coffee tables and 1080p displays in the world can’t change the fact that they’re charging £13 for an HD copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that you can pick up on DVD for about 10 pence.

And this is where the key issue comes in: the deals.

This is the best they’re offering at the moment:

This is alright, especially considering that a lot of the titles are only a couple of months old, but when they’re giving out 4 DVDs for twenty quid downstairs, it’s hard to justify the price gap.